Pelosi: Let Me Tell You How the Democrats' 'Better Deal' and Hillary's 2016 Platform are Different

On Fox News Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the questions about Democrats retaking the House and her running again as speaker are unimportant. That was entertaining since the woman has said in 2012, 2014, and 2016 that the Democrats would retake the House. Yes, part of that is her job. You can’t have the leadership admitting defeat during an election year, but to now brush it off is, well, something. Moreover, her colleague Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) seems pretty confident that the 2018 midterms will yield the 24 seats needed to retake the lower chamber. To make things more interesting, host Chris Wallace aptly noted that there is nothing new in the “Better Deal” agenda that is being touted as the Democrats’ restart on economic messaging. Pelosi responded by saying, “Well, we’re going to hear it with more clarity.”

In other words, what he said in Berryville, Virginia is exactly what Hillary Clinton campaigned on in 2016, but we’re banking on voters being too stupid to notice. The plan consists of job training, lower prescription drug costs, raising wages, and infrastructure projects.

“Leader Pelosi I’m not saying that any of that is wrong, but I am saying is that none of it is new. We’ve been hearing it for years. We heard it from the Democrats and Hillary Clinton in 2016—and you lost,” said Wallace.

Pelosi responded with the more clarity remark, which is saying that there is no difference, and that there’s nothing new. She also said that this all goes beyond winning elections; it’s about having a discussion about the issues and the path forward. That’s crap. It’s all about winning the election because losers don’t legislate. She then went on to say how the congressional Democrats are now in control of the messaging, like they were in 2006, which ended with them retaking Congress and Obama’s 2008 win. Yeah, there’s no Obama in 2020. I mean there’s no one for Democrats to run. Moreover, even the Democrats aren’t too keen on the new messaging strategy, which is riddled with obstacles concerning party unity. The Left is not going to stop until single payer is successfully implemented. Democratic Leadership will tell progressives it's an option being considered, but I think they know it's just a way to the appease them.

Yet, the fact that they are even contemplating single payer again exposes the whole “Better Deal,” as, well, a shoddy revamp of Clinton’s 2016 platform. Noah Rothman of Commentary wrote about this “false centrism.”

When pressed on Sunday [July 23] about what the “Better Deal” agenda may mean for health care, Schumer confessed it meant the most radical expansion of entitlement benefits in American history. “Medicare for people above 55 is on the table. A buy-in to Medicare is on the table. Buy-in to Medicaid is on the table,” the senator said. All options are available—including, apparently, a single-payer system in the form of voluntary Medicare-for-all—once Democrats “stabilize” ObamaCare’s insurance market.

Schumer admitted that the source of Democratic troubles in 2016 and since isn’t Moscow or former FBI Director James Comey; it’s that the electorate doesn’t know what values or beliefs his party represents. Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy agreed. “Our failing historically has been to focus on very targeted demographic messages, cultural issues, rather than broad-based economic themes,” he insisted. So the Democratic Party’s message in 2018 will apparently be not just big government but behemoth government. And yet, the faintest warble of Schumer’s conscience compelled him to assure voters that big government isn’t the Democratic objective.

He then goes on to what Politico reported, which is that the Blue Dog, an endangered conservative Democrat coalition that was wiped out in 2010, is key to the Democrats’ comeback, so national Democrats might need to lessen the intensity of the neo-Leninist policy prescriptions. I agree that Blue Dogs are the type of candidates Democrats need to launch a rural offensive, but all Republicans need to do is juxtapose the Blue Dog with Schumer, Obama, Clinton, or Pelosi and make them seem like any other Democrat. I think Pelosi will continue to be a radioactive element in the midterms, but the more progressive House Caucus doesn’t seem to be wanting to knock her off her perch any time soon.